Knave of Hearts
by TARRANT HiTOPP
Summary: Just a little story in Stayne's POV. My first published story. Oneshot


I was running, but I wasn't eager to get where I was going. I had been called to the throne room for a so called "talk" with the Red Queen. She must have found out the secret between Um and I.

" So, what were you doing with her?" She asked asked me, pacing back and forth.

" Nothing, we were... we were just discussing some business." I lied through my teeth. In all honesty, I hated The Red Queen, but she gave me the power that I craved, so I worked for her as the knave of hearts and pretended that we were in a relationship.

My heart had beat fast when I first laid my eyes on Um. She was beautifully large, no, she was huge! I love largeness, and I love power. If I could win over Um's heart, I would have to keep it a secret.

" Well then, why do I have an _EYE WITNESS_, That says you two were tangled together in a corridor?" The secret had gotten out.

I fell to my knees on the steps that led to the thrown. I had tried the direct approach with the gorgeous girl, but she had rejected me. That was a huge mistake on her part. The queen sat down on her chair with rage, and at that moment, I decided, if I couldn't have her, no one could. I pounded my fist on the step.

" Um forced herself upon me, I told her, my love belongs to you. She's obsessed with me." I lied, but that's how you get places in life, by lying.

The Queen's face turned as red as the dress she had on. I braced my self, she didn't believe me did she? I was as good as dead. She glared at me and my eye widened in worry and fear. Yes, even I feel fear, only on a very rare occasion, but it happens. Here it came, she shot out of her chair and screamed.

"OFF WITH HER HEAD!" _Her_ head? Yes! She had believed me, the sucker.

" I'll see to it." I told her as I stood, and marched off to find the girl, a horrible smile split across my face. Time for Um to pay, to regret, and to die.

I stormed to her room and swung open the door. " ARREST THAT GIRL FOR UNLAW-" I froze. She wasn't in here. How embarrassing!

I turned to my group of three soldiers that I had brought along unless she was too much for me to handle myself. "Where is she?" I asked them. They shrugged and looked from one to another and back again. "In fact, Where is she ever, she's almost never to be found anywhere," I also wondered where had she been going when I stopped her in the hallway, but I wasn't going to mention that out loud.

We went out to the courtyard, and saw the bandersnatch's stable doors were open. "What the?" That's when a soldier realized that the vorpal sword was missing. I gasped, "WHAT!" The queen was going to kill me for this! I knew what to do though.

"Go send for lots of reinforcements and close the door." I told one of the cards. "Someone in the castle has stolen the sword, and with the Frabjous day quickly approaching, we can't afford for it to fall into the hands of Alice." he nodded, closed the doors, and raced off to get help.

I then started marching down the halls with the other two, trying to find Um, and I quickly did. She was standing in a doorway. No, she was entering a doorway. After she closed the doors I ran after her.

I pressed my ear to the door and heard two voices. Then I lifted my head, saw that the door was unlocked, and kicked it open. "ARREST THAT GIRL FOR UNLAWFUL SEDUCTION!" I bellowed and that's when I saw the shocking scene.

There was Um, holding the vorpal sword above her head. I then saw why she was gone so often. There sitting on a chair with his hands up to stop alice from using the sword, was the Hatter. A little mouse was trying to pick the lock around his ankle.

Um swiveled around to point the sword at me. That's when I figured it all out. Um was in cahoots with this Hatter. That's why she had rejected me, there was someone else! Well, soon there wouldn't be, the man was chined to the wall and he had no way of escaping. He would be ripped to shreds by my sword, as soon as I took it out of it's case. Still, that could wait a few moments.

" Take it to the White Queen." Hatter yelled to Um. He must have been referring to the vorpal sword.

" I'm not leaving without you!" She responded. Soon there wouldn't be a him to not leave with.

" GO!" He screamed at her, how sweet, he cared for her safety. Despite his warning, she didn't go, but backed up to the wall and stayed there. Good, after I finished with this annoying pest, she was going to pay for rejecting me and working with him.

I grinned as my two soldiers that were left trudged up, ready to knock away the hatter and seize the girl, but the man grabbed two rolls of fabric and tossed them at us. They hit the cards smack on, knocking them to the ground with a loud clang.

My anger bubbled inside my skull and I remembered the old saying that my father always told me. " If you want some one dead, You have to kill them yourself." Well, It went something like that.

This fight was going to get real bloody real fast. I barged into the room and took long angry strides up to my competitor. He tossed a hat at me, but I was too annoyed to grab it and throw it back, instead, I unsheathed my sword from it's case on my belt and swung it up, slicing the hat into halves in the process. It was a threat in a way, I was showing him how sharp my sword was. To my distaste though, he didn't cower away, instead he ran to grab for something else.

He reached for a wire model but the chain binding him was too short and he couldn't quite reach it. I had him now.

Then, the mouse unhooked the chain from where it was caught on the leg of a table. Blasted! That gave him just enough reach to seize it and protect himself just in time to save his worthless life. That wasn't going to stop me though. I was going to cut him in thirds, no fifteenths!

I was seeing red but that wasn't new, in fact I was quite used to it now, it happened often. I sliced at the wire model trying to rid him of my life, but first, I had to rid him of his cover. I jabbed into the wire mannequin and just as planned, my sword got caught in it. He grabbed some kind of cotton pad covered in powder and started whacking my face with it. Then, I flung the model over my shoulder, not worried about where it landed.

I should have had him now, but he was still too quick, in that span of two seconds, he grabbed something and pointed it at me. It was some kind of pump filled with a clear liquid that took the color of the bottle it was in. He stepped up on a chair and tilted it forward with one foot on the back of the chair and the other (the one with the chain) on the cushion. He aimed the bottle right at my eye and leaned onto me. I held my sword up but his torso landed on the flat side instead of the blade. Then, we heard a high pitched voice cry words that took, and held, my attention

" Run!... _ALICE_!" It cried. OF CORSE! Um was the Alice and Alice was Um! I should have known no one would name there child Um.

" Alice?" I said, letting the word slip through my lips. It was more of a statement than a question. I grinned and stared at her, It was if I couldn't take my eyes away. I was snapped back into reality by a strained voice inches from me.

"Run!" Hatter squeaked, he was frightened. She turned, ran off through the doorway and down the hall. She could run, but she couldn't hide and she couldn't escape. I turned to Hatter and got a face full of stinging spray. The pain was killing me but I kept myself from flinching. I pulled my sword out from under him and he fell to the ground with a loud thud. Yes! Right onto his face. I had won and I was about to finish him off, but then I remembered that I had more important things to do.

" Seize her!" I yelled my eye still watering and I pointed at the spot that she had disappeared.

The prisoner lifted his head to look up at me as if he was planning on fighting me more. He had a scratch on his face, and he looked very much defeated. I tuned to him and scowled a 'Don't even think about it' look. If he so much as pulled his hand back to hit me, I would spear him. "Throw this thing in the dungeon." I said picking up Hatter by his shirt collar and pushing him into a group of newly arrived card soldiers who grabbed him and stopped his struggles to free himself and run. "Same with this little traitor." and I grabbed the mouse by her ear and tossed her through the air to be caught by the three of diamonds. Then, I stormed after Alice to the doorway followed by the two original cards I entered with.

" Ya'll never stop Frabjous Day from arrivin'!" I heard a voice growl from behind me in a Scottish accent. "Alice 'as the Vorpal Sword an' she be on 'er way to Mamorial!" I ignored Hatters cries of anger as I stormed down the hallway. " Ya' can do whatever you want with me, but I aint' gonna' give in! The White Queen will rule Underland in the end no matter what ya' do! DOWN WIF' THE BLUDDY BIG HID!" He yelled on, but as I got further and further down the hallway, the fainter his voice grew.

"Imagine the look on his face during her execution", I thought. "How exciting." Hatter was a pest. I was happy to soon be rid of him. Or, perhaps he would make a nice toy for me. Something to release my anger on at the end of a long hard day. I felt a smile split along my face "How perfectly Horrid Stayne." I told my self in a soft whisper. "Well done."

"SHE GOT AWAY!" Hatter screamed with joy from his jail cell when I came into the dungeon without the girl. " I knew she would!" He smirked at me with triumph. I wanted to unlock the cell and kill him right there on the spot, but that wasn't what the queen decided to do with him.

" Shut up!" I yelled, but the didn't get the message.

" What did the queen decide? Oh, Oh! Let me guess. Was it...? "OFF WIH HIS HEAD!"?" He screamed standing strait up in the air and then, sitting back down on the dirty cell floor a rat scurried past somewhere in the shadows. Well, he was smarter than I thought but it was almost too obvious what the diction had been.

" As a matter of fact yes. I would rather kill you my self, wouldn't you rather have me kill you?" He opened his mouth to answer but I cut him off. "Don't answer that!" I yelled. "Just shut up." There was a long pause.

" I told you she would escape." He gloated. I Slammed my fist on the bars of his cell.

"What did I _just_ tell you! And don't you dare answer that either!" He stumbled back in fear even though he was sitting down, that made me feel a little better, I guess. Although, my face still stung from the queen's multiple slaps across the face when I told her that Alice had escaped, with the vorpal sword, on the bandersnach, which had knocked me and the rest of my army down in the process of leaving, which also didn't feel very pleasant.

He smirked at me but stayed quiet this time, at least he knew what was good for him. I scowled as I started to pace back and forth in front of him on the other side of the of the bars. Then I got an Idea, if I told him that Alice was caught, maybe he would tell me the White queens plans. We needed to know of her battle plans and strategies if we were to beat her on Frabjous day.

" Alice will be killed because, as a matter of fact, we did catch her!" I lied to him. His jaw dropped and he stared at me shocked with his failure. "Yep! She's even being questioned as we speak." I told him, oh how I loathed him. He didn't deserve the truth. " So you might as well just give in and tell us what we want to know. Save her the pain of interrogation."

I had already tried to pry the answers out of him with my expertise in torture, but nothing had worked on him, this nut was a hard one to crack, but I would get what I wanted soon enough. " I'm sure Alice won't be as strong as you were. Such a fragile thing, I'm sure she'll be hurt much more easily than you will." I had broken Hatter's nose, stabbed his arm, and tossed him back in the cell afterward, but nothing made him talk.

He was staring at me now, eyes turning blue with sadness. Or at least I hoped it was sadness. "You can't escape," I told him "and you won't live to see alice again." Then with an evil smirk I added, "I know you love her." Suddenly, he burst out laughing. Not really the reaction I was expecting. His eyes returned to green.

" So that's what you think! Really, me and the champion of Underland?" He doubled over laughing, which, because he was sitting, made him touch his hat to the floor. "I'm just a hatter, not the prince that Alice deserves! She doesn't love me!" He stopped laughing quite abruptly and his voice became strong and challenging. " And I don't love her." Just by his tone I could tell that he was lying too. His eyes kept changing from one color to the next as if he was still deciding on how to feel, finally they settled on one color and stuck to it. He did love her, and that was truth.

"I am destined to protect Alice, I have taken an oath to protect her until I die. That is all I feel for her. That is all." His voice faded out and he turned away. " I will fight for her until my last breath. I promised Mirana." He murmured and looked at the wall as if he was talking to it, that ended our conversation.

I turned and headed over to the stone steps that led that spiraled up and exited the dirt hole of a dungeon." You are lying when you say that you have her. I know you don't." He said as I reached the first step. I turned to face him but he was still looking at the wall.

" Fine." I said. "You caught me. Alice escaped. Happy now?" He turned his head and looked at me with big, piercing blue eyes that were filled with sadness.

I drew back and looked at him in surprise. Wait a moment, was I feeling _sympathy_? I had never felt that feeling before and I always hoped I never would, but there it was.

I seemed to be frozen in his gaze, I couldn't move. He had me trapped, his eyes slicing through me, sending me a kind of pain I had never felt before. This was his own way of torturing me.

I had seen so much, death of millions and I never flinched, I never gave any attention to the little dog pup prisoners that lay a few feet away, countless executions had taken place in front of my eyes, and even my own worthless family had been killed by the Jabberwocky (not that I had ever cared, after all I was the one who had sentenced them to death), but nothing had ever made me feel this way before. I felt like screaming from this newly found pain. After what seemed like hours, he finally turned away to look at his wall again and I was released. Then he looked down at his feet sitting cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes.

" I suppose so." He murmured. I turned and ran up the stairs.I never hope I feel that awful feeling again.

I hate Hatter for many reasons, but I hate him most for what he did to me that day. He made me feel for others. That dammed hatter, I'll kill him if It's the last thing I do.

Thank you everyone who read! I really feel like a did a crummy job but what the hey! Review if I need to fix anything, and review if you loved it ( Also, review if you think it sucked because I could use a bit of criticism). Thanks again!


End file.
